Free Republic

Nowhere is the blurring of distinctions between industries more apparent than in the guest list of an exclusive, invitation-only summer retreat for corporate titans in Sun Valley, Idaho. Conceived in the early 1980s by banker Herbert Allen as a week-long mingling of Hollywood's elite, the 24th annual gathering kicks off this week with a group of executives unlikely to rub shoulders at other conferences.The informal event, which begins with presentations on Wednesday on topics ranging from healthcare to dependence on oil, was once dominated by media industry chatter. But this year's guest list suggests the topic du jour will likely...

Explanation: Sixty years ago, near the dawn of the space age, NASA controllers "lit the candle" and sent Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard arcing into space atop a Redstone rocket. His cramped space capsule was dubbed Freedom 7. Broadcast live to a global television audience, the historic Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral Florida at 9:34 a.m. Eastern Time on May 5, 1961. The flight of Freedom 7, the first space flight by an American, followed less than a month after the first human venture into space by Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. The 15 minute sub-orbital flight achieved...

A U.S. Army email, sent after the Fourth of July to its military and civilian members, included a graphic which claimed saying the phrase “Make America Great Again” is evidence of “white supremacy.” The graphic listed other behaviors it deemed evidence of white supremacy, including, “Celebration of Columbus Day,” the “Denial of White Privilege,” “Talking about ‘American Exceptionalism,'” and saying “There’s Only One Human Race.” The email invited “all soldiers and (Department of the Army) Civilian Personnel” to attend the U.S. Army’s “Operation Inclusion” seminars on July 8 and 9 at the Redstone Arsenal Army Base in Alabama. The email...

A new film, Hidden Figures, tells the story of the maths wizards who Nasa relied on. When John Glenn was waiting to be fired into orbit aboard Friendship 7 in 1962, there was one person he trusted with the complex trajectory calculations required to bring him down safely from his orbital spaceflight: Katherine Johnson, an African-American mathematician who worked in Nasa’s segregated west area computers division. “Get the girl, check the numbers,” Glenn said before boarding the rocket. “If she says they’re good, I’m good to go.” Johnson was one of three female African-American mathematicians known as the “computers in...

Special counsel Robert Mueller said in filing Wednesday that materials in his criminal case against a Russian troll farm were released and apparently used in a “disinformation campaign” aimed at discrediting his ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the election. Prosecutors with the special counsel’s office made the disclosure in a motion in the case involving Concord Management and Consulting that opposed the defendant’s request that “sensitive” discovery files be disclosed to the Russian company’s “officers and employees” for the purpose of preparing for trial. “Certain non-sensitive discovery materials in the defense’s possession appear to have been altered and disseminated...

REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. – Officials with Redstone Arsenal have confirmed there is “some sort of situation” near the Sparkman Center, Building 5301. We know there was a planned drill planned for tomorrow morning. We understand that employees have been told to shelter in place. WHNT News 19 has multiple crews headed to Redstone Arsenal to find out exactly what is going on. Please refresh the story for the latest information.

WASHINGTON – The Army said Friday it has determined that suicide was the cause of death of a two-star general who was found dead in his home on a military base in Alabama. Maj. Gen. John Rossi was found dead July 31 at Redstone Arsenal, two days before he was to assume command of Army Space and Missile Defense Command.

The former commander of the the Army Fires Center of Excellence and Fort Sill, Oklahoma was found dead in his on-post home at Redstone Arsenal on Sunday. Maj. Gen. John Rossi, 55, had just arrived Redstone Arsena to take over as the commander of the Army Space and Missile Defense Command since relinquishing command of Fort Sill on July 21st, according to KSWO. Rossi and his family only moved into their house on-post less than two weeks ago, according to John Cummings, a spokesman for Army Space and Missile Defense Command. Today, he was scheduled to be promoted to...

2016 is set to be a huge year for Microsoft. Its first HoloLens kits will hit the market, Build 2016 will provide more evidence of the company's shift to the cloud and mobile, and a new Microsoft phone may surface. Following on from the first full calendar year with CEO Satya Nadella at the helm, Redmond is moving on from a year where it revamped almost all of its major business lines. Windows, Surface, Lumia and Office all made the headlines with huge launches. Column after column has been written about Microsoft's newfound confidence, redefining both hardware and software categories....

The last known surviving member of the German engineering team that designed the rocket that took US astronauts to the Moon has died in Alabama. Oscar Holderer, who was 95, suffered a stroke last week and did not recover, his son Michael said. Mr Holderer was one of about 120 engineers who moved to the US after World War Two, bringing technology used in the German V2 rocket. They played a key role in the Saturn V rocket used in the 1969 Moon landing. The team, led by Wernher von Braun, was part of a project called Operation Paperclip that...

Microsoft loves to use codenames and from the past few years, there are two in particular that you may recall; Blue and Threshold. With Windows 10 (Threshold) coming to market sometime this summer, Microsoft is already starting to work on the next update for the OS. Microsoft has said multiple times that Windows will be moving at a faster cadence than in the past and they are already working on a release for 2016. The codename for the project is 'Redstone', a popular item in the recently acquired game, Minecraft. At this time, not much is known about Microsoft's plans...

A driver was killed early today when a Chevrolet S-10 crashed into Gate 9 of Redstone Arsenal. Arsenal spokesman Dan O'Boyle said the accident occurred at about 4:30 a.m. on Rideout Road. No security personnel were injured.

Sumner Redstone has filed for divorce from his wife of five years, Paula Fortunato, citing irreconcilable differences. The court papers were submitted Friday, Oct. 17, in Los Angeles Superior Court. The two were married in April 2003. The couple's prenuptial agreement stipulates that the 46-year-old Fortunato will receive at least $5 million, or $1 million for each year that she has been wed to the media mogul, according to people who are familiar with terms of the couple's agreement. Redstone, 85, has been telling friends for weeks that his marriage to Fortunato, 46, was ending. But despite the divorce filing...

A St. Louis-born U.S. Army colonel was killed in Iraq Sunday, according to his sister, Kathleen King of O’Fallon. Col. Stephen K. Scott, 54, was serving at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad where he was working with Iraqi leaders on weapons intelligence and defense. Scott, who was an avid runner, was in the workout facilities in the green zone when he was killed during a mortar attack, King said. -snip- After basic training, Stephen Scott worked at the Army Aviation and Troop Command facility on Goodfellow Boulevard in St. Louis until it was closed in 1997. He then moved to...

Site provides evidence for ancient comet explosion JOEY HOLLEMAN; McClatchy Newspapers Published: October 7th, 2007 01:00 AM COLUMBIA, S.C. – For the second time in less than a decade, a South Carolina river bluff holds evidence pointing to a theory with history-rewriting potential. Microscopic soil particles from the Topper site near Allendale might hold a tiny key to a big theory: that comet-caused explosions wiped out the mammoths and mastodons, prompted the last ice age and decimated the first human culture in North America about 12,900 years ago. The comet theory first began generating a buzz at an international meeting...

March 16, 2007 Last summer we went to Vietnam to shoot several "War Stories" episodes for FOX News Channel. As one might expect in a communist country where they take red tape very seriously, my producers spent weeks before our trip filling out forms, questionnaires and documents required by numerous government bureaucracies. In the process it became evident that not all the folks in Hanoi were on the same sheet of music -- but after several weeks of negotiation we were able to accomplish all that we set out to do and more, thanks to their cooperation. As it turns...

For Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of the CBS Corporation, it was a week to savor. His decision to make Katie Couric the anchor of the “CBS Evening News” looked like a wildly successful bet, so far at least. On the entertainment side, CBS was set to go into the fall season as the most watched network in prime time. Success with another, equally fickle audience — Wall Street — endeared him to his boss, Sumner M. Redstone, the 83-year-old mogul who controls both CBS and Viacom. To top it all off, Mr. Moonves watched last week as Mr. Redstone...

Media firm taps Phillipe Dauman to replace Freston as president and CEO. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Viacom said Tuesday its current president and CEO Tom Freston has resigned his position with the company. Freston will be replaced by Philippe P. Dauman, who is currently a member of the Viacom Board of Directors, the company said in a prepared statement. "I have worked closely with Philippe Dauman for many years, and I have a comfort level with him and high regard for his leadership abilities, strong financial and operational skills, and superb judgment," said Sumner Redstone, Viacom's executive chairman and founder...

Is Sumner M. Redstone crazy like a fox? Movie industry executives may be forgiven for thinking that the Viacom chairman was mad to let Tom Cruise go after a 14-year relationship simply because Mr. Cruise seemed a little off balance. After all, the movies made by Viacom’s Paramount Pictures studio and the actor’s production company earned more than $2.5 billion at the box office. Yet, if you ask economists and other academics that study the movie industry, Mr. Redstone’s decision was, in financial terms, spot on. The best reason to get rid of Mr. Cruise or, for that matter, Mel...

If there’s suddenly a litmus test for insanity to be administered by the owners of Hollywood movie studios, then start with the executive suites. That’s my reaction to the are-you-sh****ng-me pronouncement by Viacom Inc. chairman Sumner Redstone today that his Paramount Pictures is terminating its 14-year relationship with Tom “Crazy” Cruise’s production company because the actor’s controversial and erratic off-screen behavior hurt the theatrical grosses of "Mission Impossible 3. Of course, the studio's publicity department worked overtime all summer to dispel just that notion whenever entertainment business reporters questioned whether Cruise's loony tunes might affect his appeal. "As much as...